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The PhotoMuseum: An Odyssey of Learning

On Monday, I announced the release of the Bible Times PhotoMuseum, a richly illustrated guide to the people of the Bible along with the activities they engaged in and the objects they used. Today I want to tell you about how this unique new resource was conceived and developed.

Dr. J was apparently the first to suggest that we develop a resource similar to the Bible Lands PhotoGuide that would focus on Biblical people, activities, and objects rather than places. It was a great idea. We already had a huge collection of photos that we couldn't really use in the PhotoGuide, but that would be perfect for a resource like Dr. J had suggested.

Since I had written the original PhotoGuide years ago, I was asked if I would like to tackle this new resource focused on Biblical objects. On the one hand, I was excited at the prospect of writing the PhotoMuseum. I learned so much about the Bible in writing the PhotoGuide, and I knew researching all these Biblical objects would be a fantastic learning experience. On the other hand, I well remembered the massive amount of work involved in writing the PhotoGuide and the challenge of trying to get it ready for release. I was admittedly a little hesitant about taking on another project of that magnitude, and my employers were a little hesitant about assigning it to a perfectionist notorious for missing deadlines!

In spite of the hesitations, the PhotoMuseum was assigned to me and I began wading through thousands of photos of ancient artifacts: weapons, coins, weights, altars, seals, inscriptions, artwork … you name it. Based on the photos I had available at that time, I sketched out a tentative list of articles and began researching the various topics.

Writing the PhotoMuseum has been a very organic process. Sometimes I would start by writing on a given subject. I'd do my research, write my article, and then begin combing through our photo collection for images which illustrate what I had written. At other times, it was the images which inspired the writing or led me to explore things I hadn't thought about before. Usually it was a combination of both, with writing leading me to photos which prompted additional writing which in turn led to more photos! Often my search for pictures to illustrate one article would lead me to pictures that would illustrate other articles. It seemed that at every turn I was learning something new and, much to my chagrin, finding new topics I felt I needed to include.

I began writing the PhotoMuseum just over two years ago, and in that time we've added thousands more photos to our collection. Consequently, "completion" of the PhotoMuseum became something of a moving target. This initial release of the PhotoMuseum is really just the beginning. Those who purchase it can look forward to additional content and photos in future updates. And I can look forward to continuing my odyssey of learning.